


mistaken for strangers

by interstellars



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, everything is sad all the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 08:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellars/pseuds/interstellars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An interlude between the times when Charles frees Erik from the Pentagon, and when they set out to change the future.</p><p>Erik tries to understand, Charles is trying to not let himself be so easily read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mistaken for strangers

Pain.

Erik knows pain, knows it like the calluses on his fingers or the tattoo on his arm. Pain is part of him, like the slow decay on a dead body; it's as every bit a part of him as intellect is part of Charles.

They share pain. There are parts where it overlaps and blends into the same feeling, but the starkness of Erik's past differs from Charles' in a way that should have repelled them (he knows it should have, but it didn't), and it's something Charles will come to understand, with time. They'll fit, lock together in place, and stick, eventually. Charles will smooth out Erik's edges, jag by jag.

Erik has let Charles in before, let him know his mind in intimate detail. Erik wasn’t prepared to do it a second time, remembering the terms on which they had last spoken. Harsh, unrelenting. Erik doesn’t forget easily, but he also knows himself too well. 

He will let him in again, but it will not be now. 

He can’t.  


\\\

  
The mansion doesn’t feel the same.

It couldn’t, not with the overgrown ivy crawling up into the windows and the dilapidation. The lack of sunlight obscures most of the damage, but what he can see stirs a feeling that has laid latent in Erik’s chest for far too long. This used to be hope. It was a haven for so long to so many, and now it’s the cluttered residence of a man who haunts the halls of his own home. Long after Hank, Logan, and even Charles have gone inside, Erik stops and looks at what used to be a promising beginning.

Unsettling darkness forces him inside. Erik slowly moves through the front door and into the foyer, where he waits. This is a temporary stay, here at the mansion, but he’ll be more than eager to vacate once they’re meant to ship off again. He squints; years in that bright room leave his eyes struggling to adjust in a room that should have more light in it than it does. With carefully measured steps, he makes his way by memory to the study on the ground floor. To the right, past the large frame-

“Careful.”

Erik chuckles, but it comes out sounding like he’s snickering. Shaking his head, he moves further inside and stands square in front of Charles. The man has a decanter of cognac on top of the table in front of him, and in his hand a glass that already has the imprint of his lips at the rim.

“Did whiskey get boring for you, Charles?”

“Not quite. But it feels good to taste something different.”

Any tension that was originally felt on the plane ride must have faded. Charles seems tired, slightly more drunk, and unwilling to engage in any form of argumentation. When Erik steps closer, he’s met without so much as attempted eye contact. He takes this as a sign to sit on the far edge of the sofa where Charles has positioned himself. 

Memory reminds him of what it feels like to have Charles inside his head. The intrusive feeling Erik used to hate now comes with a feeling of familiarity. He wishes, just for old time’s sake, that Charles would try and read him. He’s almost disappointed when Charles looks at him, eyes red, and realizes that he can’t.

“I’m still not convinced breaking you out of the Pentagon is a good idea yet,” Charles states, pouring an empty glass full and pushing it to Erik, who gladly takes it. “It seems like more trouble than it’ll be worth.”

“It seems too soon to say that.” Again, Erik laughs under his breath and takes a drink, then another, from his glass. He crosses one leg over the other and leans back, balancing the drink on his knee. “We’re in a rather dire situation, Charles.” The downturn of Charles’ mouth and the way he closes his eyes and looks down when he says his name isn’t lost on Erik. He takes another drink.

“Yes, well…” Charles trails off before finishing his glass, setting it on the table with the decanter. His hand comes up, pushes his hair away from his face, and then settles on the cushion next to him. “It’s the only reason why I would have done it.”

“You wouldn’t need me if this hadn’t happened.”

“I would like _not_ to need you at all.”  


A thick silence falls between them. Erik stares, licks his lips, and waits for something more. Charles doesn’t give it, and instead leans back and puts his face in his hands. Exhaustion settled into Erik long ago, but he’s unwilling to leave when Charles is like _this_. This is more telling than what had happened on the plane. Erik had abandoned him, taken things from him that weren’t going to be easy, if at all, to replace. 

Charles takes his hands away so he can look at Erik in the eye. His top lip quivers upward but his blue eyes are completely blank. He moves closer to Erik, angling his body to face him dead on. The single light on the desk in the corner of the room flickers. “You did so much. You _took_ so much, and I can’t forget that. You don’t understand what it’s like.”

Erik downs the rest of the cognac, sets the empty glass down with such a force that what’s left of the drink ripples in its container. “But I do understand. It’s a shame you can’t look into my head and see that, though, isn’t it?” He aims to hurt with his words, but when Charles flinches back he doesn’t feel any satisfaction.

He surges forward, painfully close to Charles that it even takes him off guard. He could grab the other man’s shirt if he wanted to, but instead his hand moves to either side of his body to trap him in his presence. Erik doesn’t want him to escape. 

Neither man speaks. Charles’ breathing is steady, eyes suddenly calm. Erik’s head tilts forward, lips inching closer to Charles’ jawline. Electricity shoots up Erik’s spine as he draws in his breaths in quick succession, as his eyes flicker down to see how Charles’ chest is moving underneath his clothes. 

Comparing this time to the last they were this close together wouldn’t be fair. This is different, and Erik would like to think he knows Charles enough still, that he hasn’t changed so drastically in his absence.

“Fuck, Erik.” It’s the first time Charles has said his name this evening, and when he speaks Erik can almost taste the brandy they’ve drunk off his lips. Taking both of Erik’s shoulders in his hands, Charles pushes back with just enough force to free himself to stand up. “You can sleep upstairs in the room across from Logan’s,” he says, unceremoniously, and Erik sense a sinking feeling in his stomach.

He’d like to think that he still knows, even when Charles is walking out of the room, when he doesn’t look back at him. 

Charles will smooth Erik over, jag by jag, just like he had done before. 

Erik sits right where he was left and tries to convince himself that Charles will do it willingly.


End file.
